[.ca] Alcina / Christie

From Amazon.co.uk:
Here it is: one of the year's most hotly anticipated opera recordings, made during an acclaimed live production in June 1999 at the Paris Opera, which more than lives up to the promise. Whether Handelian opera is still a novelty or you're already a rabid convert, this emotionally resonant, crisply played, superbly cast interpretation under William Christie and Les Arts Florissants is likely to shake up some of your ideas about the composer. On the surface, Alcina's Ariosto-based story about a sorceress whose spell is finally broken seems like the typically absurd fare of baroque opera. But as the story unfolds in an incredible succession of some 28 arias, it's clear that these performers are reaching for deeper profundities present in Handel's music. Renée Fleming makes Alcina's huge Act II aria "Ah! mio cor" a central epiphany and turning point of the opera. It defies belief that this is Susan Graham's first baroque opera, so rich is her variety of invention and deep her musicality as Ruggiero, the one to break free of Alcina's spell, while the spun-silk soprano of Nathalie Dessay adds yet another colour to the multitude of female voices that dominate here. --Thomas May

With her portrayal of Handel's sorceress Alcina, Renée Fleming scores yet another triumph--and so do her colleagues Susan Graham and Natalie Dessay. One moment seems to top the next as Handel offers aria after aria loaded with exquisite melody. For all of its absurdities of plot, this baroque opera comes deliciously alive in the wise, stylish hands of conductor William Christie. --Thomas May

Unforgettable Alcina:
Like Fleming's divine Rosmonda and Armida her Alcina sound heavenly and truly Handelean. The previous reviewer stole another review for his hate-crusade against Fleming, ignore him. There are two supreme Alcinas: Young Sutherland (Live, 1959) and Fleming. Auger's voice was too small, as is Dessay's.

Una Alcina para disfrutar.:
Esta es una version de 'Alcina' que merece la pena ser escuchada ya solo por la soberbia creacion que hace RENEE FLEMING del papel de la maga: su voz esta pletorica y le imprime al papel un dramatismo inmejorable. Soberbia su amplia escena del Acto II. La Morgana de NATALIE DESSAY es tambien para tirar cohetes; su voz de ligera se adapta perfectamente a la parte, y las variaciones en las arias quitan la respiracion. ¡Maravillosa!. Notable el Ruggiero de SUSAN GRAHAM, que tras un acto I donde pasa algun problema de coloratura, consigue hacer una creacion esplendida del personaje en los dos actos restantes. A Bradamante la encarna la mezzo KATHLEEN KULHMAN (que ya había grabado el papel en 1985) y que cumple sobradamente su cometido, al igual que el gran equipo de secundarios conque cuenta esta version casi perfecta. Les Arts Florissants, dirigidos por WILLIAM CHRISTIE, son tal vez la mejor agrupacion barroca del momento, y asi lo demuestran aquí de nuevo. La parte menos complaciente de esta grabacion es el sonido, que delata demasiado que estamos ante una grabacion 'live', con alguna ligera descompensacion entre orquesta y voces, y los consabidos ruidos de escena. Aun asi, esta 'Alcina' merece la pena tenerla y disfrutarla, porque es un Haendel realmente bien hecho.

THE BEST ALCINA EVER:
This Alcina is \operfect\c for the following reasons: 1. The variations sung in the da capo arias are the original Handelian ones and they do not come out of some ambitious composer's mind to suit the super high notes of his wife!!! Thus you hear all the magnificent ornamentation that is written by Handel himself thus it is extremely beautiful. 2. Renee Fleming sings this roles \oFlawlessly\c with a beauty of tone it will take your breath away. Fleming has a huge voice of unique range all the way from low chest notes to high sparkling Ds and Es... She is not a tin-pot coloratura like Auger who transforms Alcina into Linda di Chamounix or something and she is far more dramatic than Sutherland who surpassses her only in vocal agility and not in Beauty of tone. Besides Sutherland's Alcina is better described with the phrase: "Hurry up Richard, let's get to the coloratura part that \oyou wrote\c because I and everybody else will fall asleep" When Fleming sings "Sola in pianto..." this is a momment of the finest and most dramatic lyricism!!! Voices like Fleming singing Baroque music will bring again Handel in the Big Houses in major productions as Sutherland did and as von Otter does... 3. Natalie Dessay sings the coloratura arias with flawless coloratura and again the handelian variations here are of the highest quality. If you knew Graziella Sciuti's Credete al mio dolore wait till you hear these unbelievable melodies coming out of dessay's throat... 4. Susan Graham is an incredibly Beautiful singer... Susan along with Renee and Natalie make this Alcina somehow an exhibition of \oimmense vocal beauty\c. The conductor is 100 times better than Richard Bonynge and the synchronization of the orchestra with Renee in "Ombre pallide" (Handel's Greatest aria) will leave you speechless... From a musicians's point of view this Alcina is totally unsurpassed.. it is Pure Handel. As fr those who accuse Fleming for having too Huge of a voice for this role do they ever read for what voices these roles were written for? These roles were written for Castrati who had not only Huge but Mythically Large Voices that exceeded the 3,5 octaves. Do you really think that Alcina is a role for little, pure coloraturas like Auger? I don't think so.

Peerless:
First, in response to the reviewer below, this production _was_ done in the States: I saw it at the otherwise staid Lyric Opera of Chicago. I think it was done elsewhere, too. Also, accepting that emotional response varies with every listener, I don't quite see how someone couldn't be incredibly moved by moments in this performance. First and foremost would be Fleming's 12-minute aria in act II, which has to be one of the most sublime da capo aria performances on record. Christie's tempi here are perfect to boot, and the orchestral sound that wonderful mix of suavity and clarity which Les Arts Florissants virtually owns in the early music business.

Bad "Alcina" recording due to Fleming and Christie:
Susan Graham and Natalie Dessay are both great. It is the conductor and Renée Fleming who make this set less than ideal. This recording has some cuts. A few of the da capos are cut and the dance music is omitted. I would suggest Arleen Augér's great recording of "Alcina" as an alternative. I believe it is the most complete set on the market. Joan Sutherland's "Alcina" is also quite good, but it has numerous cuts. Here is what Brian Robins and Bernard Jacobson, two music critics on andante.com, said about this recording: Robins (quoted and paraphrased) Fleming sings the first A section very well. Her singing in this section would melt even "a polar ice cap". In the B section, Fleming sings in a "grand, imperious manner". The repeat of the A section is a disappointment. "Alcina, the betrayed and stricken woman, is thrust aside. Into her place steps Renée Fleming, star singer, to give us a virtuoso display of crudely exaggerated affectation finally sealed by Christie's unashamedly sentimental milking of the orchestral postlude." "Quite simply, I don't think I have ever encountered a performance of a Baroque opera in which ornamentation was treated in so cavalier and unstylish a manner. Ornamentation is not even an accurate word for much of what takes place in the repeats of the da capo arias, which at times amounts to wholesale rewriting of the composer's vocal lines, octave transpositions, sudden virtuosic leaps, and cadential flourishes that are closer to the world of Rossini and Donizetti than to that of Handel. The effect on the dramatic sense of the music is at times devastating." Jacobson (quoted) "Renée Fleming is an accomplished vocal and musical artist, and there can be no denying the conviction she brings to the role of Alcina. She feels the drama in her bones, she colors her words with the utmost dramatic intensity, and she is particularly good at maintaining strength of line at the ends of phrases. Yet I would suggest, with respect, that there is something out of scale out of the whole thing. The voice is simply too big and grandiose for the music. It is as if a battleship were summoned to do battle with a skiff. And while it may seem unfair, in an aria set to the words "Tears are all I have left," to complain of the singer's lachrymose style, I find in Fleming's almost Gigli-esque performance a too Dickensian insistence on telling us how we should feel. Compare María Bayo's version of the same aria on the Astrée recital disc I review elsewhere in this issue, and you may well agree with me that a lighter touch and a less obtrusive emotionalism by no means diminish the expressive effect. Here, however, I find the wholesale rewriting of the line in many of the da capos misconceived. Though singers cannot be expected to improvise all their embellishments, it seems to me that such devices ought at least to sound as if they could have been improvised. In the present case, several arias sound, the second time around, like meticulously planned suggestions of what Handel might have written if he hadn't happened to write the aria the way he actually did; and the deviations from the original line are so radical - and harmonically divergent - that I doubt whether any singer on earth could conceivably have executed them all'improvviso."

• Alcina: Sinfonia
• Alcina: Minuet
• Alcina: Musette
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena I: Recitativo - Oh Dei! quivi non scorgo alcun sentiero! (Bradamante)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena I: Aria - O s'apre al riso (Morgana)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena II: Coro - Questo e il cielo de' contenti
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena II: Recitativo - Ecco l'infido (Bradamante)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena II: Aira - Di', cor mio, quanto t'amai (Alcina)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena III: Recitativo - Generosi guerrier (Oberto)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena III: Aria - Chi m'insegna iil caro padre? (Oberto)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena IV: Recitativo - Mi ravvisi (Bradamante)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena IV: Aria - Di te mi rido (Ruggiero)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena V: Recitativo - Qua dunque ne veniste (Oronte)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena VI: Aria - E gelosia (Bradamante)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena VII: Recitativo - lo dunque (Orante)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena VIII: Recitativo - La cerco in vano (Ruggiero) - Aria - Semplicetto! (Oronte)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena IX: Recitativo - Ah, infedele, infedel! (Ruggiero)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena X: Aria - Si, con quella! (Alcina)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena XI: Recitativo - Se nemico mi fossi (Bradamante)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena XII: Recitativo - Bradamante favella? (Ruggiero) - Aria - La bocca vaga (Ruggiero)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena XIII: Recitativo - Fuggi cor mio (Morgana)
• Alcina: Atto 1, Scena XIV: Aria - Tornami a vagheggiar (Morgana)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena I: Arioso - Col celarvi a chi v'ama (Ruggiero)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena I: Recitativo - Taci, taci, codardo (Melissa) - Arioso - Qual portento mi richiama (Ruggiero)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena I: Recitativo - Ah, Bradamante! (Ruggiero)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena I: Aria - Pensa a chi geme d'amor (Melissa)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena II: Recitativo - Qual adio ingiusto contro me? (Bradamante)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena II: Aria - Vorrei vendicarmi (Bradamante)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena III: Recitativo - Chi scopre al mio pensiero (Ruggiero)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena III: Aria - Mi lusinga il dolce affetto (Ruggiero)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena IV: Recitativo - S'acquieti il rio sospetto (Alcina)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena V: Recitativo - E la tua pace (Morgana)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena VI: Recitativo - Non scorgo nel tuo viso (Alcina) - Aria - Ama, sospira (Morgana)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena VI: Aria - Mio bel tesoro (Ruggiero)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena VII: Recitativo - Regina, io cerco in vano (Oberto)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena VII: Aria - Tra speme e timore (Oberto)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena VIII: Recitativo - Regina, sei tradita (Oronte)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena VIII: Aria - Ah! mio cor! (Alcina)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena IX: Recitativo - Or, che dici, Morgana? (Oronte)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena X: Aria - E un folle (Oronte)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena XI: Recitativo - Eccomi a' piedi tuoi (Ruggiero)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena XI: Aria - Verdi prati (Ruggiero)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena XII: Recitativo accompagnato - Ah! Ruggiero crude! (Alcina)
• Alcina: Atto II, Scena XII: Aria - Ombre pallide (Alcina)
• Sinfonia
• Atto III, Scena I: Recitativo - Voglio amar e disamar (Oronte)
• Atto III, Scena I: Aria - Credete el mio dolore (Morgana)
• Atto III, Scena I: Recitativo - M'inganna, me n'avveggo (Oronte)
• Atto III, Scena I: Aria - Un momento di contento (Oronte)
• Atto III, Scena II: Recitativo - Molestissimo incontro! (Ruggiero)
• Atto III, Scena II: Aria - Ma quando tornerai (Alcina)
• Atto III, Scena III: Recitativo - Tutta d'armate squadre (Melisso)
• Atto III, Scena III: Aria - Sta nell'lrcana (Ruggiero)
• Atto III, Scena IV: Recitativo - Vanne tu seco ancora (Melisso)
• Atto III, Scena IV: Aria - All'alma fedel (Bradamante)
• Atto III, Scena V: Recitativo - Niuna forza lo arresta (Oronte)
• Atto III, Scena V: Aria - Mi restano le lagrime (Alcina)
• Atto III, Scena VI: Recitativo - Gia vicino e il momento (Oberto)
• Atto III, Scena VI: Aria - Barbara! (Oberto)
• Atto III, Scena VII: Recitativo - Le lusinghe (Bradamante)
• Atto III, Scena VII: Terzetto - Non e amor, ne gelosia (Ruggiero, Alcina, Bradamante)
• Atto III, Scena VIII: Recitativo - Ah mio Ruggier, che tenti? (Alcina)
• Atto III, Scena IX: Recitativo - Misera, ah, no! (Alcina), Scena ultima: Recitativo - A che tardi? (Melisso), Scena ultima: Coro - Dall'orror di notte cieca
• Scena ultima: Entree
• Scena ultima: Tamburino
• Scena ultima: Coro - Dopo tante amare pene